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Lincoln Centennial Address 

Delivered by Jesse Holdom 

At McKinley High School, Chicago 

February 12, 1909 



Compliments of 
JESSE HOLDOM 






vV 



2. 



LINCOLN CENTENNIAL ADDRESS 

Delivered by Jesse Holdom 
At McKinley High School, Chicago 
February 12, 1909 




E meet today to commemorate the Cen- 
tennial of the birth of the Saviour of 
the Union, through whose mighty 
struggle and sagacious intellect the 
Union was re-established and the seed 
sown which has ripened into a Nation of world-wide 
power and influence, and which will ever be in the van 
of momentous activity in all that tends to the civilization 
of mankind. The name and the fame of Abraham Lin- 
coln are immortal. High on the scroll of imperishable 
distinction his name and wondrous deeds shine forth 
to illumine history and instruct and enthuse the people 
of the world wherever righteousness and high ideals are 
struggled for and attained. 

Illinois and Chicago, its metropolitan city, have the 
greatest incentive to participate in the tribute which 
today is being paid to the memory of this great man 
throughout the length and breadth of this Nation, for 
whose preservation he toiled ceaselessly and finally 
yielded up his life in sacrifice. For it was upon the 
fertile soil of Illinois that he was nurtured, and in the 
invigorating breezes of its flower bedecked prairies his 
physical and mental powers were developed to the 
majestic proportions which they ultimately attained. In 
the courts of Chicago many triumphs in legal contests 
stand accredited to him. After a political contest un- 



equalled in the annals of political strife, pitted as he was 
against both the most crafty politicians and the wisest 
statesmen of his time and country, in a Convention 
remarkable for the gravity of the responsibilities resting 
upon it, at a time when the Nation was threatened with 
disruption, he received the nomination, as the first repre- 
sentative of the Republican Party, for the Presidency 
of the United States. 

Here in Illinois, to the time of his nomination to the 
Presidency in 1860, he spent most of the days of his 
mentally conscious life. All that he was and all that 
came to him as a lawyer, State and National legislator, 
and finally as the Chief Executive of the Nation, he 
gained as a citizen of Illinois. His forensic struggles 
with the "Little Giant" of Illinois, the great Douglas, 
took place before audiences throughout the State. He 
fought the Indians in the Black Hawk war as Captain 
Lincoln. To the time of his election to the Presidency, 
save in the halls of Congress and in the Cooper Institute, 
New York, where his matchless, convincing oratory and 
pleasing and simple manners made him a national figure 
of the most colossal type, his voice was not heard except 
in the Capitol at Springfield or in the courts and upon 
the stump in political debate in Illinois. How fitting, 
therefore, is it, that we of Illinois should with gladness 
and pride commemorate this centennial epoch of Abra- 
ham Lincoln and join, with intensity of devotion to, and 
reverence for, his name and deeds, in this national cele- 
bration. And so we come today and lay upon the altar 
of his memory our loving tribute, and worship at the 
shrine of his glorious accomplishments. 

This school house, dedicated to the memory of the 
martyred President McKinley, one worthy to stand in 



the line of succession to the great Lincoln, and who 
was himself a soldier in the great army in the fight for 
liberty and a national government, of which Lincoln 
was, in virtue of his office, the Commander in Chief, 
is a place peculiarly appropriate for the conduct of 
these exercises. The aroma of the memory of both these 
martyred Presidents permeates the atmosphere of this 
place, hallowed for the time being with holy thoughts 
of the life and accomplishments of Abraham Lincoln. 

What shall I say to you today about Lincoln? What 
can I say that has not already been better said? Lin- 
colnian literature is bewildering for its immensity. All, 
however, that has ever been written about Lincoln is 
interesting to every lover of his country. And who has 
not read and re-read of the wonderful attainments and 
work of this great historical character? Had I been 
commanded to tell you something new about Lincoln, 
something not very generally known, I should have de- 
clined the task. So, while what I may say to you is 
but the old, old story of Lincoln, still, as you love and 
admire him and glory in what he achieved for the perma- 
nent good of our race and country, you will gladly listen, 
with cheerful hearts, to whatever I may say, no matter 
how well such incidents as I shall recite may linger in 
your memory. 

The life of Lincoln is more fascinating in its interest 
than that of a Napoleon or a Caesar. It has more of 
character, which virtue admires, and more of lessons 
to be learned from noble acts of self-abnegation and 
sacrifice, which incite our interest and stimulate our 
patriotism and civic pride. 

Like the founder of the Christian religion, he was 
"a man of sorrow and acquainted with grief." Trials 



stirred his fortitude and molded his character from the 
cradle in a lowly cabin in Kentucky until he was basely 
and wickedly assassinated at the moment of the triumph 
of our armies in the holy cause of freedom, for which 
a sanguine and bloody strife had been waged for four 
long, weary and anxious years. 

Lincoln belonged to the common people. When asked 
for his lineage he replied, that "it was the short and 
simple annals of the poor." He was cradled in poverty, 
and to the time of his maturer manhood confronted with 
the hardships of a pioneer life in what was then the 
Western frontier of our country. Poverty and hardship 
were, in his case, blessings in disguise. He lived the 
outdoor life. He communed with Nature. His soul 
thirsted for knowledge. His aims and ideals were lofty. 
He lacked the vices of adolescence. His life was as pure 
as the air of the prairies he inhaled. His body and mind 
were unpolluted and free from vicious act or thought 
and so remained to the end of his career. They were 
uncontaminated even after his contact with politicians, 
the diplomats of the world and the allurements of a gay 
capital. 

Lincoln's career will ever be an inspiration and en- 
couragement to those who seek to burst the bonds of 
lowly birth and go forth to higher things. Did he not 
obtain the rudiments of his education under the most 
discouraging conditions? Was it not a continual 
struggle for him to procure books to read, and then to 
obtain time in which to read them? He became, with- 
out a teacher, the master of English diction, and some 
of his writings and utterances today form part of the 
classical literature of the English tongue. Without univer- 
sity training or even a high school course, he is counted 



as one of the greatest orators of his age, which encom- 
passed Webster, Clay, Calhoun and Senator Douglas, 
the latter of whom he encountered in forensic discussion 
of the burning questions of the time, and thrilled the 
hearts of all who listened to his plain and forceful state- 
ments, made without any attempt at oratorical effect. 
His presence was not prepossessing, but he never spoke 
to an audience he did not win, and although many were 
the times he encountered gatherings which were hostile 
never did he appeal to them without winning their ap- 
plause and convincing their minds. 

Lincoln was noted for his rugged honesty, his sim- 
plicity, his directness, his good common sense and un- 
erring judgment of men. The sense of humor he pos- 
sessed in abundance. It was his solace in moments 
of stress and difficulty. His stories were always told 
to explain an otherwise embarrassing condition, or to 
emphasize a point under discussion. He talked at times 
in parables and they were as clean as those of Holy 
Writ. Whenever you hear an off story credited to Lin- 
coln you may be sure it never sullied his lips. To so 
great a length did he carry this habit of telling humorous 
stories that he is regarded by some eminent writers as 
the father of American humor for which Americans have 
since become so justly famed. 

Lincoln was as homely in his habits, as careless of 
his personal appearance, as any man who ever lived and 
attained distinction of the first order. He put on no 
style and assumed no airs. It is said that "he was his 
own wood chopper, hostler, stable boy and cow boy, 
clear down to, and even beyond the time he was Presi- 
dent elect of the United States." In affirmance of his 
utter oblivion to conventionality, an author informs us 



that "in Winter an old gray shawl was wrapped about 
his neck. His hat had no nap, his boots were unblacked, 
his clothes unbrushed; he carried a dilapidated carpet 
bag for legal papers, a folded green umbrella with the 
knob gone, a string tied about the middle, and the name 
' A. Lincoln ' cut out of white muslin in large letters 
and sewed on the inside. He always wore short trousers 
and usually a short circular blue coat, which he got in 
Washington in 1849, and kept for ten years, and which, 
like his vest, hung very loosely on his frame. He slept 
in a warm yellow flannel shirt, which came half way 
between his knees and his ankles. The changes which 
gradually took place in his dress, which reached its 
greatest elegance in his Presidency, were slight and 
marked no decrease in his own innocence about appear- 
ances, the improvements being usually suggested to him 
by his wife and friends. Lying on the floor in his shirt 
sleeves was a favorite attitude for reading. As he had 
no library, and the parlor, with its sofa, six haircloth 
chairs and marble table strewn with gift books in blue 
and gilt, expressed not his spirit, but his wife's, he often 
chose the hall for his recumbent study; and if women 
happened to call, Lincoln would go to the door attired 
as he was, and promise that he 'would trot the women 
folks out.' " 

This unconventional man, however, was an indulgent 
parent, seemingly unwilling to cross his children in any- 
thing, and would romp with them upon the floor and was 
fond of taking walks with them and accompanying them 
to light entertainments, such as minstrel and magic 
lantern shows. Yet the tender-hearted parent, in the 
trial of a cause, was "hurtful in denunciation and merci- 
less in castigation," as many a dishonest litigant found 
to his cost. 

6 



Lincoln had an inborn love of freedom and a natural 
antipathy to the holding of any human being in slavery. 
He was conservative in his course along these lines, for 
he early realized the seemingly insuperable obstacles to 
the abandonment of the slave traffic which was so 
securely embedded in the policy of the South. He saw 
the dangers of disunion, which he painstakingly sought 
to avoid. But early in his debates with Douglas the 
slave question was debated. As early as 1841 Lincoln 
on a steamboat journey from Louisville to St. Louis, 
saw twelve negro slaves shackled together with irons. 
In commenting on this episode, he said that that sight 
was a constant torture to him. Lincoln, in answering 
a speech made by Douglas upholding the Dred Scott 
decision, then lately decided by the Federal Supreme 
Court, uttered these ever memorable words: "I protest 
against the counterfeit logic which concludes that be- 
cause I don't want a black woman for a slave, I must 
necessarily want her for a wife. I need not have her 
for either. I can just leave her alone. In some respects 
she certainly is not my equal; but in her natural right 
to eat the bread she earns with her own hands, without 
asking leave of any one else, she is my equal, and the 
equal of all others." 

When Lincoln was the choice of the Illinois Repub- 
lican State Convention in 1858, for United States Sen- 
ator, against the protests of his friends, who feared that 
this would jeopardize his political future, he gave utter- 
ance to these sentiments in accepting that nomination: 
"We are now far into the fifth year since a policy was 
initiated with the avowed object and confident purpose 
of putting an end to slavery agitation. Under the opera- 
tion of that policy, it has not only not ceased, but con- 

7 



stantly augmented. In my opinion it will not cease 
until a crisis has been reached and passed. 'A house 
divided against itself cannot stand.' I believe this gov- 
ernment cannot endure permanently half slave and half 
free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved. I do 
not expect the house to fall. But I do expect it will 
cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or all 
the other. Either the opponents of slavery will arrest 
the further spread of it and place it where the public 
mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of 
ultimate extinction ; or its advocates will push it forward 
till it shall become alike lawful in all the States, old as 
well as new. North as well as South." Here was fore- 
shadowed the gift of prophecy, and while Abraham Lin- 
coln lost the election to the United States Senate, in 
five short years thereafter he put pen to the Emancipa- 
tion proclamation which struck the shackles which held 
in the bondage of slavery every negro in the land. 

When Lincoln left Springfield to assume the arduous 
and difficult task for which the people had called him to 
Washington, he little dreamed that he would never again 
return to mingle in the business and social life of his old 
friends and neighbors, for when he took leave of Hern- 
don, his law partner, he requested that the old law office 
sign of Lincoln & Herndon be allowed to remain, as in 
four years they would go on practicing as if nothing 
had happened. 

A rather laughable incident occurred soon after Lin- 
coln arrived at the Capital. He had prepared his in- 
augural address in Springfield, and a search at first failed 
to discover it, whereupon he remarked to a friend, "I 
guess I have lost my certificate of good moral character, 
written by myself. Bob has lost my gripsack containing 

8 



my inaugural address. I want you to help me find it. I 
feel a good deal as the old member of the Methodist 
church did when he lost his wife at the camp meeting 
and went up to an old elder of the church and asked 
him if he could tell whereabouts in hell his wife was. In 
fact, I am in a worse fix than my Methodist friend, for 
if it were nothing but a wife that was missing, mine 
would be sure to pop up serenely." I have some doubts 
of the veracity of this story, but we all know that the 
inaugural address popped up at the psychological mo- 
ment, as well as Mrs. Lincoln. 

At the threshold of his great responsibilities he real- 
ized the impending attempt to dissolve the Union. He 
did his utmost to avert it. In his inaugural he said, "I 
hold that in contemplation of universal law and of the 
constitution, the Union of the States is perpetual. To 
the extent of my ability I shall take care, as the Consti- 
tution expressly enjoins upon me, that the laws of the 
Union be faithfully executed in all the States. One 
section of our country believes slavery is right, and 
ought to be extended, while the other believes it is wrong 
and ought not to be extended. This is the only substan- 
tial dispute." To the South he said, "In your hands, my 
dissatisfied fellow countrymen, and not in mine, is the 
momentous issue of civil war. The government will not 
assail you. You can have no conflict without being your- 
selves the aggressors. You have no oath registered in 
Heaven to destroy the government, while I have the 
most solemn one to 'preserve and defend it.' " Lincoln 
concluded with this pathetic and mystic appeal: "I am 
loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We 
must not be enemies. Though passion may have 
strained, it must not break, the bonds of affection. The 



mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battle- 
field and patriot grave, to every living heart and hearth- 
stone, all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus 
of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will 
be, by the better angels of our nature." 

The patience of Lincoln was comparable only to 
Job's. He met with opposition from all sources. Seward, 
Stanton and Chase, able and loyal men as they were, 
were thorns in the side of the President. He knew their 
worth and ability to serve the country in its distressed 
condition, and by his gentle forbearance and shrewd 
management of these great minds, never taking umbrage 
or showing any temper at their often displayed hostility, 
moulded them in such tactful fashion as to bring into 
play their exalted ability in the carrying out of the 
policies of the government in crushing the rebellion and 
restoring the unity of the States arrayed against each 
other in the death clutch of war. After the war was 
well started, there were talks of peace. Lincoln, realiz- 
ing the impossibility of a cessation of hostilities, punc- 
tured the situation by telling a story about an Illinois 
man who was chased by a rampant bull in a pasture, and 
while dodging around a tree caught the tail of the pur- 
suing beast. After pawing the earth for awhile, the bull 
broke into a run, bellowing at every jump, while the 
man clinging to its tail cried, "Darn you, who com- 
menced this fuss?" Lincoln was so pestered with seekers 
after office that he was provoked to exclaim, "If our 
American society and the United States government 
are demoralized and overthrown, it will come from the 
voracious desire for office, this wriggle to live without 
toil, work and labor, from which I am not free myself." 
This class of persons, unfortunately, is not yet quite 

10 



extinct. Then there were squabblers for promotions in 
the army and navy, and the pulling of political wires 
from all over the country. Even the women took a hand 
in these distractions. A General once reproached the 
President for his exercise of the pardoning power, say- 
ing, "Why do you interfere? Congress has taken from 
you all the responsibility." Lincoln replied, "Yes, Con- 
gress has taken the responsibility and left the women to 
howl about me." Once he wrote to the officer in charge 
of the Adjutant General's office: "On this day Mrs. 

called upon me. She is the wife of Major 

. She wants her husband made a brigadier 

general. She is a saucy little woman, and I think she 
will torment me until I have to do it," and the sequel 
shows she succeeded. 

Lincoln was a natural diplomat and showed it by his 
actions in domestic and foreign affairs. In the Slidell- 
Mason-Trent affair he was instant in correcting a fatal 
mistake made by an over-zealous officer of the navy, and 
thereby averted a threatened war with Great Britain. 
Seward, the great New York statesman, concluded that 
with the inexperienced President from the West, he 
would be dictator in the Cabinet. Within a year Seward 
wrote, "There is but one vote in the Cabinet, and that 
is cast by the President." Soon after that he wrote to 
his wife, "The President is the best of us all." 

Lincoln was a man who was lucid to the very core in 
all matters, in his messages to Congress and advice to 
generals, and while he at times bore insults from his 
inferiors, yet he ruled them inexorably and showed a 
character of greatness that the world saw for the first 
time. 

Lincoln's sympathetic ear was ever sensible to the 

11 



cry of distress. Those in trouble found in him a help- 
ful friend. Many a poor woman in the depths of despair, 
interceding with Lincoln for husband or son, withdrew 
from his presence with a heart freed from trouble, her 
desires granted. 

But a few weeks before his untimely death Lincoln 
delivered his inaugural address upon entering into his 
second term of office. The concluding clause of his 
address reaches to the sublime and breathes a benedic- 
tion. Emphasizing his belief in an omnipotent Ruler, 
he quotes this passage of Scripture: "The judgments 
of the Lord are true and righteous altogether," and 
proceeds: "With malice toward none; with charity for 
all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see 
the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; 
to bind up the Nation's wounds; to care for him who 
shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his 
orphan; to do all which may achieve and cherish a just 
and lasting peace among ourselves and all nations." 

General Grant, the great commander of the Federal 
Army, speaking at the dedication of the Lincoln monu- 
ment at Springfield, paid this tribute to Lincoln : "With 
all his disappointments from failures on the part of those 
to whom he entrusted commands, and treachery on the 
part of those who had gained his confidence but to be- 
tray it, I never heard him utter a complaint nor cast a 
censure for bad conduct or bad faith. It was his nature 
to find excuses for his adversaries. In his death the 
Nation lost its greatest hero; in his death the South 
lost its most just friend." 

Lowell, in a beautiful poem on the death of Lincoln, 
written under the spell of a view of Mount Blanc as the 
mists slowly cleared away, revealing its might and 

12 



strength and grandeur, concludes with this ennobling 
stanza : 

"Great Captains, with their guns and drums, 

Disturb our judgment for the hour, 
But at last silence comes; 

These all are gone and, standing like a tower, 
Our children shall behold his fame. 

The kindly, earnest, brave, foreseeing man, 
Sagacious, patient, dreading praise, not blame, 

New birth of our new soil, the first American." 



13 



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